SAN DIEGO – With just three games left in the regular season, the San Diego State Aztecs will be in Laramie, Wyoming on Saturday evening at Arena-Auditorium to play the Wyoming Cowboys.
OFF THE BOUNCE
With just three games left in the regular season, the San Diego State Aztecs will be in Laramie, Wyoming on Saturday evening at Arena-Auditorium to play the Wyoming Cowboys.
The Aztecs and Cowboys are meeting for the 94th time with San Diego State holding a 52-41 advantage in the all-time series. SDSU is 13-27 all-time in games in Laramie, 13-23 at Arena-Auditorium, including 3-1 record in the facility under Brian Dutcher.
With one win in its final three games, San Diego State will secure a bye into the quarterfinal round of the upcoming Mountain West Tournament in Las Vegas. If it achieves the bye, it will be the team’s 19th in the last 20 years and eighth straight.
San Diego State, which reached the Sweet 16 in last year’s NCAA Tournament, has lost the point production of its top seven scorers from a year ago. Six are no longer with the organization and one, Reese Waters, has not played this season due to injury. San Diego State scored 2,742 points a year ago, but just 232 of those points (8.5 percent) have suited up for the Aztecs this year. SDSU is 19-7 overall, 12-5 in the Mountain West, in fourth place in the league standings, and has multiple wins over top 25 teams and those receiving votes, including No. 4 Houston, Creighton, New Mexico & UC San Diego.
With defense as its calling card, San Diego State has been a menace to opposing offenses. Since the start of the Fisher/Dutcher era, the 1999-00 season, SDSU has held its opponent to 40.0 percent or less from the field 388 times in 856 games (388-of-856; 45.3 percent), recording 340 wins in those 388 games (340-48; 87.6 percent). Under Brian Dutcher, since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, the Scarlet and Black has played 261 games and has limited the opponent to 40.0 percent shooting or less 138 times (138-of-261; 52.9 percent) and won 125 of those games (125-13; 90.6 percent).
San Diego State is 10-0 this season when it holds its opponent to 60 or fewer points, including most recently its 83-60 win at Fresno State on February 18. In the Brian Dutcher era, his Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 points or less 117 times and have won 110 of those games (110-7, 94.0 percent). Overall, Dutcher’s Aztecs have held their opponent to 60 or fewer points in 44.8 percent (117-of-261) of the games he has coached.
San Diego State, one of the most dominant defensive teams in the nation, ranked in the top 20 in Kenpom’s Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in nine of the last 14 years, in the top 10 in seven of the last 14 campaigns, and is currently No. 9 in that ranking. Additionally, the Aztecs are No. 1 in block percentage, No. 4 in effective field goal percentage defense, No. 5 in 2-point percentage defense, and No. 22 3-point percentage defense according to Kenpom.
The Aztecs had two players in the last four games to pass the 1,000-career point plateau: Wayne McKinney III and Nick Boyd. McKinney III topped 1,000 points vs. Boise State and comes into the Wyoming game with 1,024 points. He is one of two active players 6-0 or shorter that have scored at least 1,000 career points, shot at least .419 from the field and blocked at least 27 shots. Boyd accomplished it the next game, vs. Fresno State, and comes into the game against the Cowboys with 1,046-career points.
This year San Diego State has had second half scoring runs of 20-0, 18-0 & 17-0 all which contributed to comeback wins. Overall, SDSU has had 18 scoring runs of at least 10-0 this season and is 12-1 in contests in which it strung together at least a run of 10-0. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, the Aztecs are 75-9 in games in which score at least 10 straight points.
Head men’s basketball coach Brian Dutcher reached a Mountain West coaching milestone with the team’s 63-61 win over Wyoming on February 1. Dutcher became just the fourth coach in league history to record 100 conference wins (currently 104 victories). He joined Aztecs Hall of Famer Steve Fisher (No. 1 with 168 wins), Leon Rice (No. 2 with 156 wins), and Steve Alford (No. 3 with 128 wins) as the only coaches in Mountain West history to record triple digit league victories. Dutcher reached the milestone in 135 games, faster than any of the previous three. Alford did it in 151 games, Rice in 173 and Fisher in 190.
Sophomore Miles Byrd is one of the final 10 players in the nation vying for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s Julius Erving Award for the top small forward in college basketball. An all around talent, he is the only player in the nation who is shooting a minimum of .381 from the field, .318 from distance, .841 from the line with at least 64 assists, 51 steals and 25 blocks.
Since the start of the 2013-14 season, when the current slate of teams in the Mountain West came together, San Diego State’s 159-54 (.746) record is the best in the Mountain West in conference games. Boise State ranks second with a 144-73 (.664) mark.
San Diego State is the No. 1 ranked team in the nation in field goal percentage defense (.371) and one of two teams in the nation which is limiting opponents to no more than a combined 37.1 percent overall from the floor and 30.0 percent from long distance. (also: Tennessee)
The Aztecs have held 13 of their 25 Division I opponents to less than 40 percent shooting, nine games of less than 35.0 percent and three under 30.0 percent. SDSU limited the California Bears to just 25.5 percent shooting on Dec. 21, the third lowest opponent field goal percentage shooting night in the Brian Dutcher era.
Brian Dutcher has coached San Diego State in 141 Mountain West Conference games. In 46.8 percent of them (66-of-141), his team has limited the opponent to shooting 40.0 percent or less from the field, and in 32 games they’ve held the opposition to 35.0 percent or less from the floor (22.7 percent).
Since the start of the 2017-18 season, when Brian Dutcher took the helm of the San Diego State program, he has the No. 6 win percentage in the nation (196-65, 75.1 percent) and since the start of the 2019-20 campaign his Aztecs are 153-41 (78.9 percent), the third best record in the country behind only Gonzaga (170-29, 85.4 percent) and Houston (172-31, 84.7 percent).
San Diego State, which in 2024 reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game for the seventh time in head coach Brian Dutcher’s seven seasons, looks for its unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2024-25 season, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles, the most of any program that has ever been a member of the league.
Brian Dutcher is in his eighth season as San Diego State’s head coach and his 26th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his seven-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, seven Mountain West championship game appearances, a 196-65 overall record and 104-37 mark in league games, both league leading in that time frame, has been named the national coach of the year, twice the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and led this team to back-to-back Sweet 16s including a run to the 2023 NCAA national championship game.